A major literary event: a newly published work from the author of the American classic Their Eyes Were Watching God, with a foreword from Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alice Walker, Barracoon brilliantly illuminates the horror and injustices of slavery as it tells the true story of one of the last-known survivors of the Atlantic slave trade—abducted from Africa on the last “Black Cargo” ship to arrive in the United States.

In 1927, Zora Neale Hurston went to Plateau, Alabama, just outside Mobile, to interview eighty-six-year-old Cudjo Lewis. Of the millions of men, women, and children transported from Africa to America as slaves, Cudjo was then the only person alive to tell the story of this integral part of the nation’s history. Hurston was there to record Cudjo’s firsthand account of the raid that led to his capture and bondage fifty years after the Atlantic slave trade was outlawed in the United States.

Selected awards for Barracoon:

New York Times Bestseller

Amazon’s Best History Book of the Year 2018

TIME Magazine’s Best Nonfiction Book of 2018

New York Public Library’s Best Book of 2018

NPR’s Book Concierge Best Book of 2018

Economist Book of the Year

Join the History Center Book Group for an informal discussion and review. All Book Group titles are available in the Museum Store, members receive a 10% discount.